There is a demand for small bales for feeding horses by hand. Small bales can be handled manually and are ideal for use, for example, in horse stables. Unfortunately, small bales have a substantial handling cost, as compared to larger bales, which are now handled entirely by mechanized equipment.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,182,563 (Brown Jr. 2001) is an example of a patent which describes a method an apparatus developed for the purpose of stacking small hay bales and forming them into a large square bale.